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masculine decorum, he quickly shifted his ground, saying, “Besides, I have already told Caroline you were to attend. She is doubtless choosing her gown at this very moment.”
    “No, Bingley, I was too hasty. I do not wish it. I dislike dancing. I always feel such an object! Being sensible of the girl’s expectations and hopes; being stared at by her mamma—not to mention the rest of the company, all the cats behind their fans; no—I shall stay at home and be at ease.”
    “You dislike dancing so much because you have never had a partner you were partial to, that is all.” Darcy shook his head without speaking, and Bingley switched back to his strong suit: “Truly, though, it would be awkward for Caroline to have no partner in the beginning; makes her look a bit undesirable, does not it? She would not care for it, and neither should I, if it comes to that. She would not go, and I really could not blame her. Then how should we appear to those Country gentry you speak so feelingly of?”
    Darcy sighed heavily and reluctantly conceded: “I would not deny your sister the opportunity to establish herself properly in the neighbourhood.”
    “Excellent! Done, then,” said Bingley, fairly pouncing on Darcy’s words. “She will be most pleased.”
    “Yes, quite,” said Darcy dryly. “But let us have a right understanding; I shall squire her into the room, and I shall dance one dance with her, but that is my uttermost limit. No doubt she will establish herself as queen of the ball without any further assistance from me, and I have no inclination to make a display of myself amongst strangers.”
    “Display!” scoffed Bingley. “How, precisely, can dancing at a ball be translated into making a display of oneself? Every one does so at a ball; that is its purpose, after all.”
    “Not for me, I assure you. I have never in seven-and-twenty years managed to get through a dance with any degree of pleasure, and I cannot imagine that I shall learn differently in the five days before your assembly.”
    “You, Sir, are impossible. I…”
    “Bingley, leave off! You have taken your point: I shall go to your wretched dance. But do not imagine that I go to find enjoyment, much less my future wife.”
    “Yes, but Darcy…” Bingley started persuasively.
    “Desist, Sir!” Darcy drew himself up in his chair until Bingley’s eyes were level with his chin and favoured him with his fiercest scowl. Since he topped Bingley by a good six inches and was commensurately broad across the shoulders, he made a fine, imposing figure of a man.
    “All right! Quarter—I cry quarter!” said Bingley half laughing, half serious. “Calm yourself. Here, have some wine, eat something; your dinner is getting cold. Upon my word, I never met any one who could work himself up the way you do, Darcy. Good Lord, I hardly know but what I should have fared better at home with Caroline.”
    Darcy’s ire deflated instantly in the face of his friend’s tolerant good humour. He stared at his plate for a moment and said, “I beg your pardon, Charles, most sincerely. My deuced temper…inexcusable. Pax, old man?”
    “Pax,” agreed Bingley easily.
    “I fear my zeal for winning my point sometimes amounts to a mania; it must expose my friends to a degree of insolence it quite shames me to realise. I cannot think where I acquired such a dreadful habit. If ever I repeat this performance I give you leave to call me on the carpet directly. Agreed?”
    “Do not give it a thought,” Bingley pardoned him with the goodness and charity that was a primary source of Darcy’s regard for him. “For the most part the points you make are good ones; you talk better sense than any one else in my acquaintance—of course, my acquaintance does include my sisters and their friends.”
    In spite of his friend’s easy acquittal, Darcy still felt contrite; his temper had always been his weakness; when it got the upper hand he always regretted it. He firmly believed in